Still Life

by Val McDermid

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ Daisy said.

  They had to ring a bell for admission. The young woman looked up and tapped her trackpad. The door buzzed and Karen led the way inside. ‘Can I help you or are you just browsing?’ the woman asked. Her accent sounded East European, matching the slant of her cheekbones.

  ‘We’re here to see Mr Geary,’ Karen said.

  The gallery assistant raised one eyebrow, as if dubious about their provenance. ‘I’m not seeing anything in the diary. Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘Tell him it’s about six paintings by Scottish artists that he sold in the early 2000s.’ Karen’s level stare was implacable. ‘He’ll want to see me.’

  She frowned. ‘Can you be more precise?’

  ‘Not to you. Away and tell him we’re going nowhere till we see him.’ Karen’s voice had deepened, rough round the edges, a threat in itself.

  The assistant slid off her stool and stalked down the gallery towards a door at the back. Karen followed, with Daisy on her tail. She held out an arm to halt Daisy in her tracks a few feet from the door that had closed behind the blonde. She counted to thirty in her head, then opened the door and walked in, shoulders back and head up, making the most of her presence.

  The assistant whirled round. ‘You can’t just walk in here.’

  Karen looked around in mock-surprise. ‘Oh, did I just walk in here?’

  The man behind the desk stood up, urbane and polite. Not a trace of panic. ‘It’s fine, Elvira. I’ll deal with these . . . women.’ He nodded at her. ‘Away back to your post.’ He waited for her to leave, then gestured towards the client chairs. ‘Please, sit down.’

  Karen took a moment to absorb the room as she moved to sit. Dove grey walls, each with a vivid modern abstract. Knowing next to nothing of art and artists, all she could say was that they all looked different in their composition and choice of palette. ‘Thanks for seeing us, Mr Geary,’ she said, taking in at a glance his neatly trimmed iron-grey hair and skin that had spent a lot more time in facial spas than hers had. Large-framed tortoiseshell glasses gave his face a serious, cultured impression. He wore a silk shirt, open at the neck to reveal a tuft of chest hair and a heavy silver chain. In one ear, a substantial diamond stud.

  ‘You have the advantage of me. I don’t have the faintest idea who you are.’

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie and this is Detective Sergeant Daisy Mortimer of the Historic Cases Unit of Police Scotland.’

  ‘Then you have no jurisdiction here. This is the Poblacht na hÉireann. That’s the Republic of Ireland, to you.’

  ‘You should be grateful for that. I’d have thought the last thing you’d want would be a senior detective from the Garda Siochana sitting here.’

  He scoffed. ‘I have nothing to hide from the guards,’ he said. ‘My business is entirely above board.’

  Karen gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Sure it is. But before we get on to the interesting question of the six Scottish paintings you brokered sales for fifteen or so years ago, I want to talk about David Greig.’ She let that hang in the air. His head moved a fraction, tilting slightly to one side.

  ‘What about David?’

  ‘You’ve been his dealer for a very long time.’

  ‘I was his dealer. He’s been dead for ten years, in case you hadn’t noticed. With you being concerned with history, and all.’ His relaxed smile was almost a smirk.

  ‘Yet you’re still selling his paintings.’ She took out her phone, tapped the screen and read, ‘Jarvis Cocker in the Year 2000, Rihanna Disturbia, Barack/House Black/White, Madonna of the Celebration, Dame Judi, Time Out for Stephen Hawking, and Passing Divine, to be precise. All sold since his death and all previously uncatalogued.’

  His smile widened. ‘And all authenticated. You do know how he authenticated his paintings?’ An edge of sarcasm now.

  ‘Yes, I know all about the fingernail clippings. I presume you have a legally certified copy of Greig’s DNA?’

  Now it was a shit-eating grin. ‘That’s right. Every one of those paintings has been matched to the verified DNA. Not even a shadow of a glimmer of doubt.’

  ‘I didn’t think for a moment there would be,’ Karen said coolly. ‘So you’ll have no problem with providing me with a copy of that certificate?’

  ‘No trouble at all, officer. I presume this is a question of authentication?’

  ‘Something like that. The certificate, if you don’t mind?’

  Geary sighed. He stood up and crossed the room, lifting one of the paintings from the wall to reveal a small safe. Careful to hide the combination from them, he opened it, rummaged among the contents and returned with an A4 envelope. He emptied the contents on the desk. Karen recognised the familiar pattern of a DNA profile on the sheet of paper. Geary turned it over. On the reverse was a stamped and notarised confirmation, signed and witnessed by a Dublin lawyer with an impressive letterhead. ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘Very. The copy?’

  Another sigh. He turned to the printer table behind him and rapidly copied both sides of the paper. As he did it, Karen said, ‘I don’t suppose you could scan it too? And send it to me? Just to speed the plough.’

  This time he tutted, but he did as she asked, sending the scan to a computer. ‘What’s your email address?’ he asked. Karen passed him a business card. He went to the door and called for Elvira. They heard him instruct her to forward the scans on to Karen.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Now, if that’s all? I’m a very busy man.’

  Aye, right. ‘Not quite. These recent David Greig paintings? What can you tell us about their provenance? Do they come from collectors who want to capitalise on their good taste? Because dead artists do see a spike in prices if they’re any good. Especially if some of their works have been burned to a crisp in an arson attack.’

  His perfectly shaped eyebrows drew down slightly. ‘I deal with David’s estate. The paintings come to me via them. They may be from other collectors or they may be held by the estate. It’s none of my business as long as the paintings are authenticated by the estate. And they are.’

  ‘The estate? That would be Daniel Connolly?’

  ‘If you know, why are you asking me?’ Now he’d moved on to the front foot. His voice was sharper, his back straighter.

  ‘I’m trying to get a clear picture here. Was it Daniel Connolly who brought you those six Scottish paintings you sold in the early 2000s?’ She consulted her phone again. ‘Raeburn, MacTaggart, Redpath, Eardley, Crawhall, Doig. Or was it David Greig himself? He was the one who stole them, after all.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The denial was flat, no sign of fear.

  Yet. ‘I appreciate they won’t show up on your books,’ she said. ‘What with them being stolen. But if you genuinely have no idea what I’m talking about, why was the very mention of them enough to get us into the private office of a very busy man? And there will be traces, Mr Geary. The kind of traces the Garda’s Financial Intelligence Unit are well accustomed to digging out, once they know what they’re looking for. Is your house a bit bigger than your legitimate figures would account for? Have you got art hanging on your walls that’s beyond your official means? Is your car a bit too close to the top of the range? Once they get started, there’s no hiding place.’

  Geary steepled his fingers together. They were surprisingly short and stubby, out of keeping with the elegance he aspired to. ‘What I don’t appreciate is being accused in my own office of crimes of which I have no knowledge.’

  ‘You don’t seem to understand the difference between a threat and a promise, Mr Geary.’ Karen busied herself with her phone again then held it out to show him that morning’s shot of Iain Auld. ‘Is that Daniel Connolly?’

  Now there was a flicker of something in his eyes. A moment of decision. ‘It c
ertainly looks like him,’ he said.

  Karen flicked back through her images till she found the blow-up of the Brighton fire scene. ‘And this?’

  ‘Yes, that looks like him.’ A trace of impatience.

  ‘That photograph was taken outside the Goldman Gallery in Brighton the night it burned.’

  ‘And what has that to do with me? I’m getting quite tired of this conversation,’ he said, breathing heavily through his nose.

  ‘I find it an interesting coincidence that on the night when David Greig’s market values were pumped up, Daniel Connolly was on the spot.’

  A one-shoulder shrug. ‘As I said. Nothing. To do. With me.’

  ‘Maybe not, but your association with a man who benefited directly from the Brighton arson isn’t going to be a good look for the Gardai. Especially since you also ended up making money as a result.’

  ‘I have no knowledge of anybody’s involvement in a fire in Brighton. My dealings with Daniel Connolly are purely to do with David Greig’s estate, of which he is the legal executor and beneficiary. There’s nothing illegal in that.’

  ‘Except that Daniel Connolly doesn’t exist.’

  A long silence. At last, Geary shifted his shoulders inside his shirt and said, ‘What are you talking about? Of course he exists. You’ve just shown me a photo of him, for God’s sake.’

  Karen leaned forward. ‘The man I have a photo of is called Iain Auld. He disappeared from his life ten years ago and he was declared dead two years ago. Can you tell me how it is you’ve been doing business with a dead man all these years?’

  ‘I’ve never heard the name Iain Auld before now.’ He clamped his lips tight together as if to stop anything untoward spilling out.

  ‘You must have done due diligence before you started dealing with him?’

  ‘I’m a businessman, not a fool.’ He turned away and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. It was a double-depth file drawer. His fingers walked across the file tabs and he drew out a thin red folder. ‘My dealings with Daniel Connolly.’ He selected two sheets from the bottom of the pile and handed them to Karen. ‘His passport. His bank account details complete with his address.’

  It was an Irish passport, due to expire later in the year. And the address on the bank statement was Hill House, Ramelton.

  ‘Why would I doubt that?’ His voice was mild now. He thought he was past the worst. He spread his hands wide. ‘Ladies, I’m an art dealer. I sell work on commission. Nothing more exotic than that. If you tell me Daniel Connolly is not who he says he is, that’s a matter for you and the Gardai, not me.’

  This wasn’t going quite the way Karen had hoped. Time for the last ace up her sleeve. She returned to her phone and brought up one of the photographs of the two men she’d taken that morning. She pinched the screen and enlarged David Greig’s face. She showed it to Geary. She was taken aback by the look of genuine shock on his face.

  ‘What the fuck?’ He recoiled in his chair. ‘How the fuck? Where’s that from?’

  ‘You know who that is, don’t you?’

  Geary swallowed hard. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that’s David.’ His tongue flicked along his lips. ‘But it can’t be. David’s dead.’

  49

  Either Francis Flaxner Geary was one of Ireland’s finest thespians or he genuinely knew nothing of David Greig’s resurrection. He stared down at the phone, the colour gone from his face. ‘I don’t get it,’ he murmured. ‘Why would he hide from me? I loved the man like a brother.’

  Now she was flying by the seat of her pants. The plan she’d worked out and gone over a dozen times in her head was predicated on Geary being in on the whole devious plot. Time to improvise. ‘Every time you share a secret, you multiply the chances of exposure.’ Karen gave a snort of laughter. ‘If he’d told you, he’d have had to kill you. That’s what he did to the last person who found out. I can show you a picture of the dead man, if you like?’ She reached for her phone again.

  Geary had the look of a man who’s been caught on a sandbank by the tide. ‘You’re making this up. I don’t know why, I don’t know what you’re trying to . . . This is a fucking fantasy. David was never a killer. He . . . we . . . Look, we were lovers. Way back when he first came to me and asked me to represent him. He never so much as lifted a hand to me. David couldn’t . . . kill someone. You’ve got it wrong.’

  ‘Those paintings you’ve been selling, the ones that were supposedly in a private collection – they’ve been painted since David supposedly died. That’s why the fingernails are authentic.’

  ‘No, this is crazy. You’re making this up.’

  Karen shook her head. ‘Francis, listen to me. We can prove what I’m saying. All we need to do is send a fingernail from one of the recently sold paintings to a forensics expert. They can do what’s called a stable isotope analysis and that will tell you that David Greig has been living in the north-west of Ireland for some considerable time. Which, as far as I’m aware, he never did before his presumed suicide.’ She took in the stricken look on his face. ‘I’m not making this up. He’s living in Ramelton with the man calling himself Daniel Connolly.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘There’s one way to find out,’ Karen said, thinking furiously on her feet. ‘Get Daniel Connolly over here and confront him with the evidence. See what he has to say for himself.’

  Geary jumped to his feet and opened a tall cupboard. He poured himself two inches of Black Bush and returned to his chair. ‘You’re lying to me. David would never deceive me like that. He’d have no need.’

  ‘You’ve seen the pictures.’

  Geary gave a hoarse shout of laughter. ‘I spend half my life looking at video installations, collages and deepfakes. The camera does nothing but lie these days.’

  ‘You want to know the truth, don’t you? So let’s get Connolly in this room and see whether he can explain himself.’

  ‘And how are you going to do that? Kidnap him?’

  ‘Will he come here if you ask him?’

  ‘What? “Come to tea so I can interrogate you”?’ Geary’s lip curled to match his sarcasm.

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of, “Something’s come in that I need you to take a look at. The seller claims it’s by David but I’m not sure.” You could text him. Suggest he comes over to have a look tomorrow.’

  Geary took a pull on his whisky. ‘Why should I do this? What’s in it for me? You said yourself, the last person who found out about him was killed.’

  ‘You’ve already found out, though. You know now. I was only going to throw you to the Gardai, but if you’d rather I throw you to David?’ She turned to Daisy. ‘That would work, wouldn’t it? Then we could stake out Francis here and wait for David to show up. Of course, we might not be quick enough off the mark.’

  Daisy nodded. ‘David’s a smart operator. I bet he could get to Francis, no bother.’

  He dropped his head into his hands. ‘Youse are bastards,’ he wailed, all his debonair polish tarnished.

  Karen exchanged glances with Daisy, who gave her an almost imperceptible thumbs-up. ‘A text, Francis. That’s all you’d have to do. And we’ll be here waiting tomorrow morning when Daniel arrives. Then we can straighten all of this out.’

  He raised his head slowly, as if it had become very heavy. His eyes glistened with self-pity.

  ‘Otherwise . . . ’ Karen left the word hanging.

  ‘Bitch,’ he said.

  ‘Get your phone out.’ Her tone saturated with contempt.

  He took his phone from his pocket and laid it on the desk. He unlocked it and stared at it as if he’d never seen it before. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Put it in your own words. Something he needs to come and look at.’

  He sighed and began slowly tapping out a message. When he’d done, he pushed
the phone towards Karen. She read:

  Daniel, I had a walk-in this afternoon with a small canvas she says is David’s work. I’ve never seen it before but she’s got some paperwork. I need your authentication. She wants a quick deal. Can you come over tomorrow? Cheers, FFG.

  She could see no grounds for suspicion, so she pressed send.

  ‘Now we wait,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose Elvira could manage some coffee?’

  The coffee came from a nearby café, but it didn’t make the time pass any more quickly. Thirty-three minutes ticked by before Geary’s phone vibrated.

  Can’t you scan it and sent it over?

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Unlock it,’ Karen said. Then she typed, She wouldn’t leave it with me. She’s coming back tomorrow at noon.

  This time, there was no wait. Pain in the arse, but I suppose I have to check it out. See you between 11 and 11.30.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Geary,’ Karen said. She stood up. ‘We’ll be back tomorrow morning. You’ll understand why we need to borrow your phone. In case you’re tempted to try a wee double-cross. It’s tempting to cuff you to a radiator overnight, but I’m going to trust you to understand that, if you fuck with me, I will make sure David Greig knows you know. And before we go—’ She reached across his desk and filched the original verification of Greig’s DNA. ‘You can keep the copy,’ she said across his howl of rage.

  ‘Wow,’ Daisy said as soon as the door of Gallery Geary snecked shut behind them. ‘That was some performance. I had no idea where you were going with that.’

  ‘Neither did I. I was sure he was in cahoots with Greig. But you saw the way he reacted. He was gobsmacked when I talked about Greig being still alive.’

  ‘I know. His face! No way was he putting that on. He’s obviously been totally taken in by Iain Auld’s Daniel Connolly routine. How did they get away with that?’